Dragonfly in Amber (74 page)

"There." He pointed to a spot near the cavern entrance. The rocks there were brown with dust and age, but not rusty with water and erosion, like those deeper in the cave.

"That was the entrance, once," he said. "The rocks fell once before, and sealed this place." He turned back and rested a hand on the rocky outcrop that shielded the lovers from the light.

"They must have felt their way around the cave, hand in hand," I said. "Looking for a way out, in the dust and the dark."

"Aye." He rested his forehead against the stone, eyes closed. "And the light was gone, and the air failed them. And so they lay down in the dark to die." The tears made wet tracks through the dust on his cheeks. I brushed a hand beneath my own eyes, and took his free hand, carefully weaving my fingers with his.

He turned to me, wordless, and the breath rushed from him as he pulled me hard against him. Our hands groped in the dying light of the setting sun, urgent in the touch of warmth, the reassurance of flesh, reminded by the hardness of the invisible bone beneath the skin, how short life is.

It was called Broch Tuarach, for the ancient cylinder of stone, built some hundreds of years before, that poked up from the hillside behind the manor. The people who lived on the estate called it "Lallybroch." Insofar as I could gather, this meant "lazy tower," which made at least as much sense as applying the term "North-facing Tower" to a cylindrical structure.

"How can something that's round face north?" I asked as we made our way slowly down a long slope of heather and granite, leading the horses in single file down the narrow, twisting path the red deer had trampled through the springy growth. "It hasn't got a face."

"It has a door," Jamie said reasonably. "The door faces north." He dug in his feet as the slope dropped sharply, hissing through his teeth in signal to the horse he led behind him. The muscular hindquarters in front of me bunched suddenly, as the cautious stride altered to a tentative mincing, each hoof sliding a few inches in the damp earth before another step was risked. The horses, purchased in Inverness, were good-sized, handsome beasts. The wiry little Highland ponies would have made much better work of the steep slope, but these horses, all mares, were meant for breeding, not work.

"All right," I said, stepping carefully over a tiny runnel of water that crossed the deer path. "Good enough. What about ‘Lallybroch,' though? Why is it a lazy tower?"

"It leans a bit," Jamie replied. I could see the back of his head, bent in concentration on the footing, a few tendrils of red-gold hair lifting from the crown in the afternoon breeze that blew up the slope. "Ye canna see it much from the house, but if you stand on the west side, you'll see it leans to the north a bit. And if ye look from one of the slits on the top floor over the door, ye canna see the wall beneath you because of the slant."

"Well, I suppose no one had heard of plumb lines in the thirteenth century," I observed. "It's a wonder it hasn't fallen down by now."

"Oh, it's fallen down a number of times," Jamie said, raising his voice slightly as the wind freshened. "The folk who lived there just put it back up again; that's likely why it leans."

"I see it! I see it!" Fergus's voice, shrill with excitement, came from behind me. He had been allowed to stay on his mount, as his negligible weight was unlikely to cause the horse any great difficulty, bad footing notwithstanding. Glancing back, I could see him kneeling on his saddle, bouncing up and down with excitement. His horse, a patient, good-natured bay mare, gave a grunt at this, but kindly refrained from flinging him off into the heather. Ever since his adventure with the Percheron colt at Argentan, Fergus had seized every chance to get on a horse, and Jamie, amused and sympathetic to a fellow horse-lover, had indulged him, taking him up behind his own saddle when he rode through the Paris streets, allowing him now and then to get up alone on one of Jared's coach horses, large stolid creatures that merely flicked their ears in a puzzled sort of way at Fergus's kicks and shouts.

I shaded my eyes, looking in the direction where he pointed. He was right; from his higher vantage point, he had spotted the dark form of the old stone broch, perched on its hill. The modern manor-house below was harder to see; it was built of white-harled stone, and the sun reflected from its walls as from the surrounding fields. Set in a hollow of sloping barley fields, it was still partly obscured to our view by a row of trees that formed the windbreak at the foot of a field.

I saw Jamie's head rise, and fix as he saw the home farm of Lallybroch below. He stood quite still for a minute, not speaking, but I saw his shoulders lift and set themselves square. The wind caught his hair and the folds of his plaid and lifted them, as though he might rise in the air, joyous as a kite.

It reminded me of the way the sails of the ships had filled, turning past the headland into the shipping roads as they left the harbor of Le Havre. I had stood on the end of the quay, watching the bustle and the comings and goings of shipping and commerce. The gulls dived and shrieked among the masts, their voices raucous as the shouting of the seamen.

Jared Munro Fraser had stood by me, watching benignly the flow of passing seaborne wealth, some of it his. It was one of his ships, the Portia, that would carry us to Scotland. Jamie had told me that all Jared's ships were named for his mistresses, the figureheads carved in the likenesses of the ladies in question. I squinted against the wind at the prow of the ship, trying to decide whether Jamie had been teasing me. If not, I concluded, Jared preferred his women well endowed.

"I shall miss you both," Jared said, for the fourth time in half an hour. He looked truly regretful, even his cheerful nose seeming less upturned and optimistic than usual. The trip to Germany had been a success; he sported a large diamond in his stock, and the coat he wore was a rich bottle-green velvet with silver buttons.

"Ah, well," he said, shaking his head. "Much as I should like to keep the laddie with me, I canna grudge him joy of his homecoming. Perhaps I shall come to visit ye someday, my dear; it's been long since I set foot in Scotland."

"We'll miss you, too," I told him, truthfully. There were other people I would miss—Louise, Mother Hildegarde, Herr Gerstmann. Master Raymond most of all. Yet I looked forward to returning to Scotland, to Lallybroch. I had no wish to go back to Paris, and there were people there I most certainly had no desire to see again—Louis of France, for one.

Charles Stuart, for another. Cautious probing amongst the Jacobites in Paris had confirmed Jamie's initial impression; the small burst of optimism fired by Charles's boasting of his "grand venture" had faded, and while the loyal supporters of King James held true to their sovereign, there seemed no chance that this stolid loyalty of stubborn endurance would lead to action.

Let Charles make his own peace with exile, then, I thought. Our own was over. We were going home.

"The baggage is aboard," said a dour Scots voice in my ear. "The master of the ship says come ye along now; we sail wi' the tide."

Jared turned to Murtagh, then glanced right and left down the quay. "Where's the laddie, then?" he asked.

Murtagh jerked his head down the pier. "In the tavern yon. Gettin' stinkin' drunk."

I had wondered just how Jamie had planned to weather the Channel crossing. He had taken one look at the lowering red sky of dawn that threatened later storms, excused himself to Jared, and disappeared. Looking in the direction of Murtagh's nod, I saw Fergus, sitting on a piling near the entrance to one grogshop, plainly doing sentry duty.

Jared, who had exhibited first disbelief and then hilarity when informed of his nephew's disability, grinned widely at this news.

"Oh, aye?" he said. "Well, I hope he's left the last quart 'til we come for him. He'll be hell to carry up the gangplank, if he hasn't."

"What did he do that for?" I demanded of Murtagh, in some exasperation. "I told him I had some laudanum for him." I patted the silk reticule I carried. "It would knock him out a good deal faster."

Murtagh merely blinked once. "Aye. He said if he was goin' to have a headache, he'd as soon enjoy the gettin' of it. And the whisky tastes a good bit better goin' down than yon filthy black stuff." He nodded at my reticule, then at Jared. "Come on, then, if ye mean to help me wi' him."

In the forward cabin of the Portia, I had sat on the captain's bunk, watching the steady rise and fall of the receding shoreline, my husband's head cradled on my knees.

One eye opened a slit and looked up at me. I stroked the heavy damp hair off his brow. The scent of ale and whisky hung about him like perfume.

"You are going to feel exactly like hell when you wake up in Scotland," I told him.

The other eye opened, and regarded the dancing waves of light reflected across the timbered ceiling. Then they fixed on me, deep pools of limpid blue.

"Between hell now, and hell later, Sassenach," he said, his speech measured and precise, "I will take later, every time." His eyes closed. He belched softly, once, and the long body relaxed, rocked at ease on the cradle of the deep.

The horses seemed as eager as we; sensing the nearness of stables and food, they began to push the pace a bit, heads up and ears cocked forward in anticipation.

I was just reflecting that I could do with a wash and a bite to eat, myself, when my horse, slightly in the lead, dug in its feet and came to a slithering halt, hooves buried fetlock deep in the reddish dust. The mare shook her head violently from side to side, snorting and whooshing.

"Hey, lass, what's amiss? Got a bee up your nose?" Jamie swung down from his own mount and hurried to grab the gray mare's bridle. Feeling the broad back shiver and twitch beneath me, I slid down as well.

"Whatever is the matter with her?" I gazed curiously at the horse, which was pulling backward against Jamie's grip on the bridle, shaking her mane, with eyes bugging. The other horses, as though infected by her unease, began to stamp and shift as well.

Jamie glanced briefly over his shoulder at the empty road.

"She sees something."

Fergus raised himself in his shortened stirrups and shaded his eyes, staring over the mare's back. Lowering his hand, he looked at me and shrugged.

I shrugged back; there seemed to be nothing whatever to cause the mare's distress—the road and the fields lay vacant all around us, grain-heads ripening and drying in the late summer sun. The nearest grove of trees was more than a hundred yards away, beyond a small heap of stones that might have been the remnants of a tumbled chimneystack. Wolves were almost unheard of in cleared land like this, and surely no fox or badger would disturb a horse at this distance.

Giving up the attempt to coax the mare forward, Jamie led her in a half-circle; she went willingly enough, back in the direction we had come.

He motioned to Murtagh to lead the other horses out of the way, then swung himself into the saddle, and leaning forward, one hand clutched in the mare's mane, urged her slowly forward, speaking softly in her ear. She came hesitantly, but without resistance, until she reached the point of her previous stopping. There she halted again and stood shivering, and nothing would persuade her to move a step farther.

"All right, then," said Jamie, resigned. "Have it your way." He turned the horse's head and led her into the field, the yellow grain-heads brushing the shaggy hairs of her belly. We rustled after them, the horses bending their necks to snatch a mouthful of grain here and there as we passed through the field.

As we rounded a small granite outcrop just below the crest of the hill, I heard a brief warning bark just ahead. We emerged onto the road to find a black and white shepherd dog on guard, head up and tail stiff as he kept a wary eye on us.

He uttered another short yap, and a matching black and white figure shot out of a clump of alders, followed more slowly by a tall, slender figure wrapped in a brown hunting plaid.

"Ian!"

"Jamie!"

Jamie tossed the mare's reins back to me, and met his brother-in-law in the middle of the road, where the two men clutched each other round the shoulders, laughing and pounding each other on the back. Released from suspicion, the dogs frolicked happily around them, tails wagging, darting aside now and then to sniff at the legs of the horses.

"We didna expect ye 'til tomorrow at the earliest," Ian was saying, his long, homely face beaming.

"We had a good wind crossing," Jamie explained. "Or at least Claire tells me we did; I wasna taking much notice, myself." He cast a glance back at me, grinning, and Ian came up to grasp my hand.

"Good-sister," he said in formal greeting. Then he smiled, the warmth of it lighting his soft brown eyes. "Claire." Impulsively, he kissed my fingers, and I squeezed his hand.

"Jenny's gone daft wi' cleaning and cooking," he said, still smiling at me. "You'll be lucky to have a bed to sleep in tonight; she's got all the mattresses outside, being beaten."

"After three nights in the heather, I wouldn't mind sleeping on the floor," I assured him. "Are Jenny and the children all well?"

"Oh, aye. She's breeding again," he added. "Due in February."

"Again?" Jamie and I spoke together, and a rich blush rose in Ian's lean cheeks.

"God, man, wee Maggie's less than a year old," Jamie said, with a censorious cock of one brow. "Have ye no sense of restraint?"

"Me?" Ian said indignantly. "Ye think I had anything to do with it?"

"Well, if ye didn't, I should think ye'd be interested in who did," Jamie said, the corner of his mouth twitching.

The blush deepened to a rich rose color, contrasting nicely with Ian's smooth brown hair. "Ye know damn well what I mean," he said. "I slept on the trundle bed wi' Young Jamie for two months, but then Jenny…"

"Oh, you're saying my sister's a wanton, eh?"

"I'm saying she's as stubborn as her brother when it comes to getting what she wants," Ian said. He feinted to one side, dodged neatly back and landed a blow in the pit of Jamie's stomach. Jamie doubled over, laughing.